Chapter 12 Aria Pov
The heavy, suffocating silence of the library felt like it was pressing the air right out of my lungs. On the massive oak table, Kael lay as still as a tombstone. The grey, mottled texture of the petrification curse had reached his jawline, turning his regal features into a terrifying mask of unyielding rock.
"Move," I commanded, my voice cracking but sharp.
Pierce didn't move. He stood over Kael’s body, his hands hovering as if he could physically pull the curse out of his king’s skin. His amber eyes were blown wide with a grief so raw it was vibrating through the room. "He’s a King," Pierce whispered, a note of hysteria climbing into his throat. "He’s two hundred years old. He can’t just... he can't end like this. Not on a table in a room full of books."
"He won't," I snapped, shoving past him. "But he will if you keep standing there acting like he’s already a statue. I need room to work, Pierce. Now, get back."
I didn't have magic. I had spent twenty-two years being reminded that I was a "void," a hollow space where power should have been. But as I looked at the obsidian mirror in my hand, I realized that my lack of magic was exactly what made me the most dangerous person in this room. The killer was harvesting the power of witches to fuel this curse. If I had magic, the mirror would feed on me, too. It would use my own energy to accelerate Kael’s end.
But I had nothing to give. And because I had nothing, I could take everything.
I placed the mirror directly onto Kael’s chest, right over the center of the grey stain. The moment the black glass touched the cold, stony skin, a shockwave of static electricity jolted up my arms. It felt like I’d plunged my hands into a hive of frozen wasps.
"Aria," the mirror’s voice echoed, sounding louder and more distorted than ever before. "You seek to interfere with the inevitable. The cycle of stone has begun."
"Shut up and show me," I hissed, my teeth gritted against the vibrating pain in my joints. "Show me the anchor. Show me where the magic is being funneled from."
The green light of the mirror flared, blindingly bright. For a heartbeat, the library disappeared. I wasn't standing over a table anymore. I was standing in a dark, damp basement that smelled of rot and old copper. In the center of the room, suspended by chains made of shimmering violet energy, was the "Young One"—the vampire the mirror had shown me before.
He was screaming, though no sound came out. His body was a conduit, a battery. I could see the silver threads of witch magic being forced into his veins, turning his blood into a caustic, petrifying sludge. And standing in the corner, shrouded in a glamour so thick it looked like a physical veil, was the shadow.
The killer.
They weren't a vampire. They weren't a witch. They were something else—a hybrid of malice and stolen power.
The vision snapped. I was back in the library, gasping for air, my hands still pinned to the mirror on Kael’s chest. The grey stone had stopped moving, but it hadn't retreated. Kael was suspended in a half-life, his heart beating once every minute, a slow, heavy thrum that felt like a dying drum.
"I saw him," I whispered, looking up at Pierce and Thierry, who had just rushed in. "The vessel. He’s in the old tunnels beneath the shipping district. The killer is using a vampire to anchor the curse so it bypasses Kael’s natural defenses."
"The shipping district?" Thierry’s brow furrowed. "That’s neutral territory. It’s supposed to be warded against high-level magic."
"The wards are what’s powering it," I explained, the pieces finally clicking together in my mind. "The killer didn't just bypass the wards; they're using the city’s own protective grid as a magnifying glass. Every time a witch or a vampire uses magic near the district, it feeds the curse on Kael."
Pierce let out a low growl. "I’ll go. I’ll tear that basement apart."
"No," I said, standing up straight. "If you go in there with all that vampire strength and speed, you’ll just trigger the trap. You’re made of magic, Pierce. You’ll be walking into a giant magnet. It’ll strip you bare before you even reach the door."
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Pierce demanded, slamming a fist against the table. "Watch him turn to dust?"
I looked down at my hands. They were steady. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like a mistake. I didn't feel like the girl who couldn't light a candle or brew a basic potion.
"I go," I said. "I’m the only one who can walk through those wards without tripping the sensors. I’m the only one the killer can’t harvest."
"You're a human girl with a piece of glass," Thierry said, his voice unusually soft. "You won't last ten seconds against whatever is guarding that vessel."
"I'm not just a girl," I countered, leaning over Kael and pressing a hand to his stone-cold cheek. I didn't care who was watching. I leaned down and whispered into the small space of skin that hadn't turned to rock yet. "I'm the Vampire Queen of Seattle. And I’m coming to get my King."
I turned back to them, the obsidian mirror humming with a dark, hungry light. "Thierry, I need a map of the lower tunnels. Pierce, I need you to stay here and guard him. If the killer realizes I'm coming, they might try to finish him off early. Do not let anyone and I mean anyone into this library."
"Aria," Pierce said, stopping me as I headed for the door. He looked at me with a new kind of intensity. It wasn't suspicious anymore. It was respect. "If you do this... if you save him... you realize there's no going back to the coven, right? You'll be one of us forever."
I thought about the faces the mirror had shown me—the dead eyes of my friends. I thought about the way Kael had looked at me in the kitchen, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
"I was never one of them anyway," I said.
I checked the pouch at my side, making sure the mirror was secure. I didn't have a wand. I didn't have fangs. But I had a plan, and I had a void where my soul was supposed to be a void that was finally ready to be filled with something other than silence.
I walked out of the library and into the cold, rainy night of Seattle, the weight of a kingdom on my shoulders and the fire of a "broken" witch in my heart. The hunt was on, and for the first time in two hundred years, the monsters were the ones who should be afraid.